China purges senior military official Miao Hua from top ruling body

China‘s top legislature has voted to remove senior military official Miao Hua from the Central Military Commission, its highest-level military command body, state media said.

BEIJING — China’s top legislature has voted to remove senior military official Miao Hua from the Central Military Commission, its highest-level military command body, according to a statement published Friday by Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.

Miao, 69, was put under investigation for “serious violations of discipline” in November. The former political ideology chief of the People’s Liberation Army was also suspended from his post.

The Xinhua statement did not contain any other details, but the move marks another stage in President Xi Jinping’s ongoing anti-corruption purge of China’s military, in which over a dozen PLA generals and a handful of defense industry executives have been implicated.

Miao’s photo had been removed from the senior leadership page of the Chinese defense ministry’s website in recent weeks. He was also removed from China’s national legislature for “serious violations of discipline and law,” according to a communique released by the legislature last month.

“The Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission held a military representative conference on March 14 this year and decided to remove Miao Hua from his position as a representative of the 14th National People’s Congress,” the statement said.